


the cain conundrum

by uhjpg



Series: feathers au [2]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Teleportation, artemis is jade's sister in this fic, basically how cass meets bruce, bruce tries his darnest to adopt cass but we'll see how that goes, cass is v competent but at the same time she's a useless gay like the rest of us so, damian is robin during all of this, jade is low key a hot mess and thats okay, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 03:31:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18307304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uhjpg/pseuds/uhjpg
Summary: Cassandra knew she had one chance to leave and so she took it. Too bad that nothing is as it seems and Cain is always one step ahead of her, playing at her strings like she's a puppet and he's the puppetmaster.Though getting stuck with an internationally wanted assassin is a fun twist that she hadn't really seen coming.





	the cain conundrum

**Author's Note:**

> okayyy so I noticed there wasn't a lot of cass centered fics (or maybe i'm not looking hard enough lmao) so yeah here's a cass fic. (It's kinda a prequel to my fic 'owl feathers and orange fuzzy socks' but you don't really need to read it first to understand this fic [but you might not get some of the jokes and/or refrences]). 
> 
> also I made Cass a bit more verbal (mainly through sign language) because it was difficult for me to write her as totally silent but i did my best lol.
> 
> but yeah lmao here it is !

_ U.K. Exact Location: Unknown. _

_ November 12th, 2007 _

 

_ 2:07 A.M. _

  
  


_ Dodge. _

 

_ Block. _

 

_ Disarm. _

 

_ Repeat. _

 

_ They had been going at it for hours and he still would not let her rest. _

 

_ Rest was for the weak, and weakness was something he did not tolerate. Not in his daughter. She would train until every bit of weakness evaporated from her body. She would be strong, no matter the cost. _

 

_ It was a dark night and the moon was covered by heavy rain clouds. Still, he forces her to train without light. She could not depend on anything but herself. He would not allow it. _

 

_ Lightning cracks and for a second he can see her face, smooth and deadly as she angles her body to deliver what would have been a devastating blow. But he was better. He dances out of the way effortlessly, batting away her katana. It flies out of her grasp and she looks back it in dismay. _

 

_ A weakness. A mistake she couldn't afford. _

 

_ Immediately, he lunges forwards, hands wrapping around her thin neck and throws her back. Crashing against a dumpster, she falls limply to the ground. _

 

_ Before she can have a chance to recover, he immediately hounds her, twisting both arms behind her and slamming her face down on the ground below. _

 

_ Another crack of lightning flashes and he briefly sees the gravel digging into her skin, cutting little wounds on her face. He presses harder and she doesn't protest. She had been taught better than that. _

 

_ “Never turn your eyes from your opponent.” He grinds out, increasing the pressure on her shoulder joints, making her shift in discomfort. _

 

_ He waits a bit, before letting go and standing up. As she drags herself to her feet, he immediately returns to his original position and lifts his arms up. “Again.” _

 

_ She dutifully obeys, settling in a crouch, waiting for his signal to pounce. _

 

_ It begins to rain, but neither of them stops.  _

 

_ Dodge. _

 

_ Block. _

 

_ Disarm. _

 

_ Repeat. _

 

_ The sun begins to rise in the horizon, granting them increased visibility. They still keep going, and so does the rain. _

 

_ She reaches up and brushes her sopping hair back from her eyes before adjusting her grip on her katana. _

 

_ She is visibly exhausted, dark circles decorating her face, but she does not complain. She does not ask for a break. _

 

_ She runs towards him, flipping over him and landing behind him before lunging at his back. He whirls around and catches the blade between the palms of his hands, looking her dead in the eyes. _

 

_ She lowers her eyes respectfully, and he lets go of the blade, only to deliver a sharp kick to her abdomen that sends her flying backward for the eighth time today. _

 

_ She flies back twenty feet due to her light weight, and he watches her back connect with the concrete wall. _

 

_ For a seven year old, she was still ridiculously small, despite all of the muscle she had built over the years.  _

 

_ Perhaps it's for the best, he muses. People would underestimate a small framed girl far more than one who was exceptionally tall and weathered. _

 

_ She does not delay long, despite getting slammed against concrete. She immediately bounces back and attacks him again. _

 

_ Ducking his head, he lets her blade whiz past his ear before knocking it out of her hand. _

 

_ She does not look at it this time. Instead, she ducks, using her small size to her advantage and goes for his legs, tripping him. As he topples over, she presses her spare knife to his neck.  _

 

_ Her teeth are barred and rainwater is streaming down her face and dripping on his own. She does not reach up to wipe it from her face, despite the amount of discomfort it must be causing her. When her short hair falls in her eyes, she ignores it, focused intensely on her father, dark eyes burning. _

 

_ She presses the dagger harder against his skin, and he can feel it chafe away at his skin and the first pricks of blood begin to pool out. _

 

_ She does not relent. She knew better than to stop before he told her to. _

 

_ A crack of thunder rolls through the air, taking a large amount of clouds with it. _

 

_ Sunlight begins to pool around them, lighting up the surrounding area. _

 

_ Distant footsteps grow closer and he shifts his attention to the direction of the noise. A policeman. _

 

_ He looks back at his daughter. She hears it too. _

 

_ The rhythmic pattern of the man's boots grow louder, and he immediately rears up, grabs his daughter and vanishes. _

 

_ The policeman rounds the corner, only to be met by an empty alleyway, save for a few stray cats and a few empty cans of coca cola littering the streets. _

 

_ “Hello?” The man calls out, looking around. “Is anyone there? I was called because the residents reported loud noises throughout the night. If you're here, please come out. I want to make sure you're okay.” He waits expectantly, carefully observing the dumpster, noting the indent in the metal, as well as some traces of blood that was being rapidly washed away by the rain. _

 

_ Sighing, the man picks up his receiver and tilts his head to speak into the microphone. “There was no one here. Over.” _

 

_ Taking one last look at the alleyway, the man sighs. “I don't get paid enough for this.” He turns on his heel and soon his receding footsteps disappear completely. _

  
  


_ He comes out of the shadows and puts his daughter down, removing the clamped hand over her mouth. It had just been a precaution. She never made any noise. _

 

_ She looks up at him with wide, imploring eyes and he just shakes his head and begins to walk away, knowing full well she'd follow. _

 

_ After an hour, he looks back and sure enough, she was trailing after him, her oversized katana dangling from its case on her back. _

 

_ Her hair is in her eyes again and he mentally considers shaving it all off. It would certainly be more efficient but decides against it. _

 

_ She would have to be able to work with her hair if she'd be going on the missions he had planned for her. _

 

_ She sees him looking at him and sends him a toothy smile, cracking her usually impassive mask. _

 

_ Looking back, she sees she's holding something tightly in her left fist and he stops and holds out his hand expectantly. _

 

_ She looks unhappy with this development, but she walks over and places a single, bloody tooth in his hand. She then points at where her right front tooth had been, and then back to the tooth. _

 

_ He frowns, knowing she wants to keep it. She was not allowed to own things of sentimental value. It disrupted her training. _

 

_ Because of her training, she knows what he's going to do before he does it, and her facial expression turns sour before smoothing it out as he flings it away, watching it clatter down into the sewers below the city. _

 

_ Shoving her forwards, he navigates her to their apartment, allowing her an hour of sleep before she began her studies for the day. _

  
  


_ An hour passes, and when she doesn't get up and come out of her room like she usually does, he goes to wake her. She doesn't have any blankets or pillows. Instead, she's sleeping on the wood floor, curled into a ball. As he nears her, he spots something that should not be in her arms. A small black bat plushie with a missing eye was tucked into her hands and he immediately jerks it from her, waking her. _

 

_ He sees the panic flash in her eyes before she stamps down her emotions and sits at his feet, looking directly ahead. _

 

_ He turns over the stuffed animal and sees the word “C A s S” written in a yellow marker. The handwriting was crude and it was evident that the person who wrote it did not know how to write. _

 

_ He looks down at his daughter, cold anger simmering underneath his skin. She avoids his gaze and he grabs her by her hair and forces her to look up at him. Her lip trembles but she keeps her face straight. _

 

_ “Where. Did you learn to do that?” He snarls, holding the plushie in front of her face. _

 

_ She looks away and points at a book titled “ABCs” that he had not noticed before. Clearly, he would have to spend more time in her room to ensure that she was acting how he needed her to. _

 

_ “And how did you know which letters to use?” He seethes out, redirecting her back to the plushie. _

 

_ She doesn't answer. She couldn't. He hadn't trained her to speak. But he knows she can answer him. He tightens his grip on her hair and a strangled cry reaches her lips. _

 

_ “I will not ask you again.” He warns and she uses her hands to silently tell him that she had asked a teacher. _

 

_ How she met a teacher, much less one that could sign, without his supervision was a mystery to him, but it was not one he would continue to allow.  _

 

_ She would live in the kitchen from now on, and be on constant surveillance.  _

 

_ “Take the bat.” He directs harshly, releasing her hair and watching her stumble backward, trying to regain her balance. _

 

_ She takes the bat and he pulls out the knife and cuts off one of the ears. “To match the missing eye.” He tells her humorlessly. _

 

_ He then opens the window and forces her to throw it out of it.  _

 

_ “Not again.” He tells her coldly, pulling her away from where she had been staring forlornly at the world below her, the bat was now a speck of black on the busy street below and none of their concern. _

 

_ He turns around and faces her once they get far enough away.  _

 

_ “You know what happens to naughty little girls.” He warns, waiting for her to respond. _

 

_ “They get punished.” She signs back, eyes hard with determination. _

 

_ He smiles, the ends of his lips twisting upwards. He'd remove her rebellious spirit soon even if it broke her. And breaking people was something he  _ excelled  _ at. _

  
  


**Chapter One**

 

London

 

September 24th, 2016

 

1:57 A.M.

  
  


It wasn't dark. From her position next to the window, she can see the outside world perfectly clear. The moon was gone, swallowed up by the clouds, but she can still make out its faint light through it haze. 

 

There were still some people on the streets, and if she strains her ears, she can hear their laughter floating up when she looks down, seeing their brightly colored umbrellas and shawls that stood out in contrast with the grey tones of the rest of the world.

 

But that's not all she can hear. She can hear the screams and cries of the less fortunate, who had no one to fight for them, no one to watch over them. They were perfect pickings for people like Cain. No one would notice if they went missing, and if they did, they wouldn't search too hard for them. There were no bright colors there. Everything was a blur of black, white, and grey, and nobody cared enough to do something about it.

 

She doesn't hear what the person says, four stories below her, but she hears the gunshots. Cringing, she unfolds her legs and stands up, stretching her arms as she does so. Closing the checkered curtains with one hand and picking up her hoodie in her other, she quietly patters down the hall and to the other side of the apartment; the one that faces the alleyway.

 

She's not supposed to be here but Cain was out for the night. She wasn't supposed to know that. She was supposed to be knocked out from the drugs that he had put in her food. Unfortunately for him, she had seen him and had put on an incredible show of pretending to eat it. The cats in the streets before would thank her for the food after they woke up from a drug-induced nap.

 

Opening the window, she sits on the window seat and crosses her arms on the window sill, placing her head in her arms, nestling her nose in the soft black fabric of the hoodie she had just put on. She loved listening to the noises of the night, especially from this side. The other side had the constant sound of traffic, screaming and arguing, and fake laughter. This side had crickets, the occasional yowl of an alleycat or the bark of an abandoned dog, and silence. No person was ever in the alleyway at night.

 

It was peaceful, and she didn't have much peace in her life. She never did.

 

But she could, she thinks. Cain wasn't here, and he didn't know she wasn't drugged. If she left, she'd have a four-hour head start, and with her specific skills, it would be incredibly hard to track her.

 

She takes a moment, toying with the idea. Looking at the digital clock attached to the wall, she reads the neon green numbers. 2:09 A.M.. Cain would be home at five. If she doesn't leave now, there's a chance she never will.

 

Making her decision in a split second, she shuts the window and goes to the back where the supplies were kept. Cain wasn't as careful with her because he thought she couldn't read, so he had written the passcode in her line of sight many times.

 

Unfortunately for him, she had a photographic memory that she had kept hidden from him since she was a little girl, and she picks out the buttons he had pressed with ease.

 

S-A-N-D-R-A space W-U--S-A-N.

 

She has also been studying as hard as she could in her spare time. She knows her ABCs and can read certain short words. Cain didn't know that either. She learned at an early age that he was not to be trusted.

 

Opening the closet, she pulls on a pair of leather pants and an armored shirt, as well as her hoodie over it. She then grabs her boots, the ones she uses for training, and a grey backpack that she fills with cash and a few granola bars and a water bottle. And a banana. She like bananas. She then shifts her attention to weapons. She couldn't bring just anything with her, but she could take a few undetectable ones. A pair of small daggers and some shurikens. And of course her utility belt. Cain had it made undetectable for when he needed her to do jobs for him.

 

Putting everything away into the bag, attaching her utility belt to her waist under her hoodie, and slipping on her boots and lacing them up, she stands up and shuts the door. Taking one last look at the apartment, she opens the alleyway window and slips out, silent as a shadow.

 

She moves soundlessly down the back stairs and steps down into the alleyway and shoulders her bag. She had a long way to go, and little time to travel. 

She knows she won’t get far on foot, or even in a car or train. What she needs is a plane. She’s not stupid, she knows that she can’t try to buy a ticket with a wad of cash. That would raise too many legal suspicions. She also knows she can’t make a bank account and buy one from there, Cain would be able to trace it back to her. Which meant all her legal options were out, but most of her life has been spent doing morally and lawfully wrong things, so she’s willing to do one more.

 

As she walks down the street, she enters a market that is still buzzing with nightlife and it’s easy enough for her to blend in. She snags a realistic looking blonde wig and puts it on with little difficulty; she could create convincing disguises in her sleep. Running her fingers through her now-blonde hair, she observes herself in a mirror that had been set up for people who were shopping for glasses. The hair was much longer than hers, going all the way down her back while her natural hair didn’t quite reach her shoulders now. She has to admit that long hair is pretty, but it’s too much of a nuisance to keep up with. 

 

Gazing over the selection of glasses, her eyes are caught by a pair of rounded glasses with light brown sides. They aren’t prescribed, so she swipes them when the owner turns to help two other customers; a girl with fiery red hair and a man with brown hair. She pretends to clean the glasses on the edge of her hoodie before slipping them on and grabs a new backpack in the process as the owner leans over to pick something up.

 

Next was clothing. While she was keeping her original clothing, she finds a red denim jacket that she throws over her hoodie. A pop of bright color draws the eye to it, and make the rest of her almost forgettable. She slips out of the stall when the owner is not looking but leaves some cash next to the register. The woman had been kind to her when she walked in, smiling at her and telling her that her hair was beautiful. Of course, the hair is fake, but the woman didn’t know that and that made all the difference.

 

As she adds the finishing touches; a couple of brightly colored strings that hang from her new bag (making sure to hide the old one) and a bit of bright lipstick that would draw attention to her mouth instead of the rest of her face, as well as adding a splash of synthetic freckles across her nose, she begins to walk out and something catches her eye. She turns and walks over to it and picks it up to get a better look at it.

 

It’s a simple black cap, but what really catches her eye was the bright yellow bat symbol that had been stitched onto the middle of the cap, right before the bill began to jut out. She transfers it from hand to hand, thinking.

 

Finally, she makes her decision. She takes the cap and shoves it in her backpack. She couldn’t use it here, but once she’s out of the U.K. she can ditch her current disguise and create a new one. Cain’s version of her had hair that went down to her mid back, but she had chopped it off as evenly as possible in an alleyway far enough from the apartment that it couldn’t be traced back to her. And she had properly disposed of it. Cain would also be looking for things like the bag she had taken, but she had replaced it with a new one. He would probably look for a money trail as well but she would not leave one. She was also a Cain and she knew better than making silly mistakes that would result in her getting caught, thank you very much.

 

She quickly exits the market and heads towards the train station.

 

Walking down the steps, she veers to the right and makes her way towards an old, rusted door that had large red letters stamped on the front. She’s sure it’s meant to warn people, but unless she wants to stand in front of it for ten minutes and sound out the letters, she can’t read it which means it does not apply to her.

 

She grabs the handle and tries to open it but it doesn’t budge. She tries to push it instead of pull it, but the door refuses to move. Sighing, she takes out one of the bobby pins she had in her wig and quickly unlocks the door, which slowly opens with a low groan. She enters and shuts the door behind her, making her way down a descending staircase.

 

The lighting has a green tint to it and everything looks old and abandoned. Had she not come here with Cain before, she would have doubted that there was life here, but she keeps going. She had done too much to back out now.

 

She finally makes it to the end, where a long line of people was waiting in line for tickets. This was the center of illegal traveling. If you needed tickets, passports, or visas in a place that didn’t ask questions or keep track of who went through there, this was the place to go. The only catch was the sky-high prices and the owner’s tendency to be stingy with what he does for people. 

 

She has more than enough money and more than enough skills to manipulate him like a puppet. It was only a matter of getting to him in time. This line was longer than some of her training sessions.

 

Pushing to the front of the group, ignoring the angry cries and comments thrown at her, she walks right up to the desk and shoves a man out of the way before throwing down a wad of cash and telling him “Tibet.” in a snappy voice. She’s thankful the word comes off her tongue smoothly enough. She had been practicing it while coming here.

 

If she didn’t speak enough in the usual way, then people could link her back to Cain. She could not allow that.

 

The owner looks up lazily at her, not even batting an eye at the cash or the angry man who was now trying to push her out of the way. She stands her ground but also stomps on his foot for good measure. She hears a  _ crunch  _ and the man cries out in pain, scrambling to remove his shoe to check if it was broken or not. 

 

She could spare him the trouble and tell him that it is broken, but she doesn’t feel like using her voice more than she has to.

 

She looks at the owner square in the face and leans in closer to him. “I need a Passport and ticket to Tibet. Now.”

 

The man reeks of alcohol and sweat and it takes all of her self control not to recoil. She doesn’t even scrunch up her nose. 

 

The man looks at her long and hard before sighing, taking the cash, and waving his hand.

 

‘’Drew!” He calls out to a dark-haired man in the back, “Get this pretty little lady a passport and a one-way ticket to Tibet!”

 

She sends him a sharp smile in thanks and makes her way to Drew, who was setting up the camera for the passport picture. He quickly takes her picture, forgetting to tell her the flash would be on. As a result, she looks like a spooked deer.’

 

He apologizes and asks her if she wants to have it retaken. She shakes her head. She didn’t have the time.

 

“Name?” He asks, going to work on the fine details.

 

“Paula Crock.” She uses a name that is common sounding, nothing that anyone would remember.

 

He hums in acknowledgment before asking her for her birthday, age, and height. She lies about those as well.

 

Handing her her passport, he begins pulling up tickets. “How soon do you want it?” He asks, scrolling through pages on his cracked MAC laptop, not bothering to look up at her.

 

“Now.”

 

He doesn’t comment. Then again, he is working in an underground, illegal travel agency so he’s probably used to people needing to leave the country in a hurry.

 

Handing the ticket to her, he points her in the direction of the back exit, telling her a cab would be there to pick her up and take her to the airport.

 

She looks at his watch before she leaves. It was 3:46. Her flight was at 5:00 A.M. Cain would be home at approximately 5:17. By the time he realizes that she left the country, it would probably be around 6:30 A.M. He would have no way to trace which way she went. 

The cab ride is quick and she rushes out of the cab, leaving a few crumpled bills as a tip for the driver, who begins to speed away as she begins to open the door.

  
  


Being able to navigate in a busy area such as an airport for someone who struggles to read is not as difficult as one would think. She simply goes up to a worker, shows them her ticket, and they point her in the right direction. She goes through customs quickly enough and soon she’s at the gate, waiting for the flight to be called. She spends her time sounding out her boarding pass over and over again until she memorizes what it says.

 

The flight attendant calls for boarding early, and soon she’s on the plane and in the air. It is a seven-hour long flight, and she is sitting in the back of the plane, next to a woman who is desperately trying to shush her crying one-year-old.

 

People around them were sending the woman dirty looks, and she feels bad for the woman. She had no control over the child, no matter how hard she tried to soothe the baby’s cries. She looks over the woman’s shoulder and looks at the screaming baby. The baby has a tuft of black hair and is dressed in green and yellow, and its face is tinged red from crying.

 

The woman looks absolutely exhausted, her face ragged and weary as she cradles her child. The baby keeps crying, and she can tell the woman wants to cry as well.

 

Gently tapping the woman’s shoulder to get her attention, she gestures at the baby. The woman frowns at her before her eyes widen in understanding. She looks hesitantly down at her child before looking back at her. She seems to realize they are suspended in mid-air in a small plane and that there was nowhere for her to take the baby, so she hands over the baby.

 

She gently cradles the baby in her arms, shifting the baby’s weight from arm to arm every so often. She looks down at the baby’s scrunched up face and automatically knows what’s wrong. The air pressure was affecting the baby’s ears and the baby had no way to tell anyone or ask for help.

 

Gently pinching the baby’s nose closed, she waits for the baby to attempt to breathe out of its nose a couple of times, making the baby clear its sinuses with little effort. The baby immediately stops crying and looks up at her with a gummy smile, reaching its small hands up at her face. She smiles back at it for a few more seconds and then turns to the mother, who is staring at her with an impressed expression.

 

“Thank you for that.” The woman thanks her as she hands her the baby again, “I didn’t even think about the air pressure.”

 

She smiles at the woman before looking back at the now cooing baby, who is preoccupied with the opening and closing the window cover.

The woman notices her looking and sends her a soft smile. “His name is Carson.”

 

She smiles back.

 

-

 

They land in Tibet at 8:00 P.M. 

 

She quickly goes into a bathroom and removes the blonde wig, makeup, red jacket, and the strings she had attached to her backpack. Looking at the stall’s mirror, she brushes her chopped hair out with her fingers, trying to make it look even. When she looks closer at herself, she notices one side of her hair was longer than the other, so she takes out one of the small knives from her utility belt and begins to even it out. 

 

When she finishes, her hair goes about halfway down her neck and is longer in the front than in the back. Brushing back the front of her hair out of her eyes, she takes out the light yellow snow coat she had snagged from one of the airport stores and throws it on, as well as the fluffy black snow hat that had also been permanently borrowed from another store.

 

It was not too cold around the airport, but for where she was going, she’d need all the warmth she could get.

 

Shoving the remnants of her disguise in the trashcan and then covering it up with an admittedly wasteful amount of paper towels, she walks out of the bathroom, and makes her way towards the exit of the airport.

 

She easily blends in with the tourists who also have snow gear on; other people were not as accustomed to the cold climate and were compensating in any way they could.

 

She finally finds the exit and pushes open the heavy door and walks out into the world in front of her.

 

The crisp air swirls around her, nipping at her nose as she makes her way through the streets, and she can smell the promise of snow. It would come early this year. Stopping next to a barren old gnarled tree, she takes a moment to observe the world around her for the first time. Allowing herself a moment of peace, she looks up towards the sky, eyes closed as she feels the wind whip at her hair and pulls at her hat. She smiles and lets out a quiet sigh. She could be herself again.

 

Her name was Cassandra Cain, and for the first time in her life, she was truly free.

 

Opening her eyes, she spots a taxi and rushes towards it, an arm reached out in a silent plea.

 

The cab waits, to her surprise. In London, if you tried to hail a taxi, the driver would look you dead in the eye and drive away, leaving you yelling at the rearview mirror. This was different, but it was nice. 

 

-

 

The man drops her off at the base of one of the trails that would eventually lead to the Himalayan mountains.

 

The man looks unhappy with leaving her alone at night, but she waves him off. She had only one place to go; that place was up.

  
  


Cassandra doesn’t know much about her mother, but she knows she works for the League of Assassins. She also does not know much of the League, but she does no that their base is located somewhere in the Himalayas. She also knows if she can get a place in the League, then there is no way that Cain can ever touch her again.  If she went anywhere else there was a chance he would find her. If she joins the League, that would change.

 

And so she climbs, and she doesn’t stop. 

 

She runs into a woman in a heavy cloak with a small child trailing next to her, chin held high proudly about halfway up the mountain. The woman stops and looks long and hard at her as if she recognizes her.

 

“Mother.” The child speaks in a clipped tone. “Why are you wasting your time? She’ll die here soon enough anyway.” He glares at her, but she cannot bring herself to glare back. He is just a child.

 

“Hush, dear one.” The woman commands, looking at Cassandra with steady eyes. 

 

She seems to be thinking about something Cass can’t quite make out, but she finally speaks. “The place you seek is to the east.” She tells her in a strong, rich voice. “Keep following the north star, and you will eventually come across it.

 

“But be careful of what you seek, not everything is as you think it is, and the League is no game.” She tells her gravely.

 

The woman does not wait for Cass to thank her, instead, she gestures to her son and they continue on down the mountain, the last thing she heard being the child going “Mother, you really need to stop allowing  _ strays  _ into our home. Grandfather will not be pleased.”

 

Cass ignores him and changes her direction to the east, climbing upwards.

 

The higher she goes, the colder it gets, and pretty soon, it begins to snow. Had Cass been anyone else, she would berate herself for just climbing up the Himalayas without a plan, but she was not anyone else, and her freedom depended on it. She keeps going.

 

The snow crunches loudly underneath her boots and she can feel the cold seeping through the soles of her shoes and her thick wool socks. Wrapping the jacket closer to her body, she zips the zipper up as high as it could go. It reaches the tip of her nose and she blows air from her mouth upwards to try to warm her freezing face. She pulls down her hat lower on her head, and stops for a moment, taking her backpack off and squatting down to rummage through it, praying that her past self had been insightful enough to snatch a scarf.

 

She does not find a scarf, but she does find a large t-shirt. Wrapping it around her neck into a makeshift scarf, she continues to search blindly through her backpack before her fingers brush against something cool and smooth. 

 

Triumphantly, she pulls out a half-frozen water bottle and unscrews the top. Tilting it back, she feels the cool liquid slide down her throat. She’s tempted to guzzle the whole thing but stops herself. She would need it later. She pulls out her banana, which had begun to brown, zips up her bag, slings it on her shoulders, and continues on, munching on the fruit slowly, trying to make it last as long as possible. When she finishes the fruit, she eats the peel as well. It contains high amounts of vitamin B6 and B12, as well as magnesium and potassium, and she needed as many nutrients as she could get. She also couldn’t risk leaving a trail for someone to follow.

 

Her nose crinkles at the taste, but she doesn’t stop chewing on it.

 

At least it made her less focused on how tired of walking she was getting. Now she was more focused on finishing the peel. 

 

Looking up at the sky, she spots the waning moon and from the position she concludes that it was about 3:00 A.M.. Thankfully she slept a few hours on the plane, so she hasn’t been awake for a full twenty-four hours, but she’s still exhausted. She’d walked for six hours straight, and she knows she can’t risk sleeping in the snow.

 

She changes her train of thought from  _ walking  _ to  _ find shelter before I pass out from exhaustion and freeze to death. _

 

She eventually spots a small crevice and crawls in. It’s dry for the most part, and the entrance was too small for anything bigger than her to get in. The ground is not as cold as it had been outside, and with little else to do until the morning, she rests her head on her pillow and shuts her eyes, letting the world around her grow black.

 

-

 

When Cass opens her eyes, she’s met with the sun’s harsh glare reflecting off of the snow that littered the world around her, and she takes a moment to stretch. She hasn’t had much time to do so, and she was feeling very stiff. 

 

As she stretches her left hamstring, she’s hit with a glimmer of jealousy for the Flash. Sources said that he had accelerated healing, and she wishes that she had that. Her entire body feels like it was run over by a tractor and then thrown into a meat grinder. 

 

Tipping some of the water in her mouth, she swishes it throughout her mouth before spitting it out into the snow, trying to clean her mouth as best as she can without toothpaste. She then takes some snow and rubs it on her face, which was not the most sanitary thing in the world, but it’s better than wasting her precious water. 

 

Besides, she was high enough up that most of the pollution wouldn't have reached it here. She hopes. If she starts getting acne later on today, she is not going to be happy.

 

Just as she’s about to consider finishing the other half of the banana peel (it was a definite no, but she wanted to at least consider it to make herself feel like she was doing something right), she hears a loud explosion, and she grabs her backpack and quickly runs outside, following the direction of the sound.

There was only one thing that could have caused an explosion so high up, and she was not about to miss what might be her only chance of finding the entrance to Nanda Parbat.

 

Instead, she runs straight into another person.

 

Bouncing back, she immediately positions herself, ready for the other person to attack. The other person doesn’t attack; instead, she just sighs dramatically and puts her hands on her hips, looking down at Cass.

 

The other person was a woman dressed in green, with thick black hair framing her face. In her hands are two sai, which were hanging loosely from her grip. She stares at Cass with an amused look her face, mouth twitching upwards and Cass knows she won’t attack her unless provoked. 

 

Cass stares back blankly at her, waiting for the woman to say something. 

 

The woman stares back at her, her eyebrows inching upwards. “If you’re gonna attack me, go ahead and do it, sunshine.” She tells her in a light voice, sending a pointed glance at Cass’ yellow coat,  but Cass can see that she is evaluating her threat level. 

 

Cass relaxes her posture and puts away the dagger she had pulled out without noticing. Old habits die hard. She doesn’t try to talk to her though, she couldn’t risk it.

 

The other woman circles around her, looking her up and down. “What’s a  _ kid  _ doing all the way up here?” She doesn’t wait for Cass to respond, or maybe she knows that Cass won’t answer her, so she comes up with the answer herself. “You’re looking for the League of Assassins, aren’t you?” She asks, and Cassandra can hear the dry humor in her voice. “Lemme tell you, sunshine, don’t even bother with them. I’ve been with them for  _ years  _ and they just threw me out. Didn’t even get an explanation. Of course, Ra’s probably did it for the drama of it all, really. I bet you my left lung that it’s ‘cuz he’s pissed Talia got the drop on him last night and disappeared with his Heir without him noticing. If that’s the case, I might even stop being angry about getting exiled because that’s honestly  _ hilarious _ .” She rattles off casually as if she’s known Cass for years. 

 

She stops in front of Cassandra and leans in close so that their noses are almost touching. “I’ll give you some advice, sunshine, in this life it’s every girl for herself. You’re better off on your own.” She then pulls away and begins to walk away, and Cassandra almost wants to follow her. She turns back towards her original route and continues on before her ears pick up on the quiet crunch of snow. She turns to warn the woman, but she already heard it and was already poised, ready to strike.

 

Cass knows she should leave, if she wants to be accepted into the League she cannot be seen with someone they had just exited, but she can’t bring herself to leave her. 

 

A large man that looked suspiciously like a humanoid tiger leaps out of one of the snow banks, katanas out and pointed at the woman, who just casually dances out of the way, easily defending herself.

 

Cassandra knows she shouldn’t be surprised by her skill, she had just mentioned she had been with the League for years, but she can’t help but be awed by her movements. They were fluid, and she looked like she was flying. She probably had training as an acrobat before she had joined the League, and she fought with styles that Cass had never seen before.

 

She watches the man, and she knows what he’s going to do next. She also knows that the woman was not prepared for that. The man did an impressive job at faking what he was going to do, but he couldn’t fool her.

 

Before she realizes what she’s doing she darts forwards and blocks the man’s strike, which had been headed for the woman’s heart. Instead, his blade only makes contact with the thick bracelet on her wrist, and there’s a huge explosion that throws the man back.

 

The air clears, and she sees the man stand up and rush towards them. The woman sends her a smirk, ruffles her hair, and runs towards the man, yelling “Thanks, sunshine!” over her shoulder. 

 

Right as they’re about to make contact, the woman’s bracelet fizzles and suddenly she disappears from view, and so does Cass.  

  
  


When she opens her eyes, she knows she’s not in the Himalayas anymore. Looking around wildly for anything familiar, she spots the woman from before angrily tapping the bracelet, muttering “dumb fucker fucked with my teleporter…” under her breath about ten feet away.

 

Hesitantly, Cass walks over to her, hoping that she’d get an explanation. The woman looks up at her and Cass can see the irritation that flashes across her face. 

 

‘Great, you’re here too.” She mutters, before hitting the bracelet against a thick oak. The bracelet stays silent, and the woman runs her other hand through her thick hair, letting out a loud sigh. “Okay, here’s the deal, sunshine. Sir Idiot back there messed with my teleportation bracelet, and so now we’re in Russia. I don’t know what you’re gonna do, but I have places to go, so have fun and be safe.” She stomps off, but when she gets about fifteen feet from Cass, she’s blown back, and she lands on the ground.

 

Frowning, she stands up and brushes herself off and tries again. The same thing happens. Cass has a sinking feeling in her stomach, and when the woman looks back at Cass suspiciously, her worst fears are confirmed.

 

“Hey, sunshine. Walk forwards about three feet.” The woman calls, looking back at her.

 

Cass complies, and the woman is then able to walk three more feet away before getting blown back again.

 

The woman’s hair is sticking out in every direction, and her eyes look murderous. “This,” she seethes, “This is  _ just  _ what I need right now.”

 

Cass doesn’t know what to do, so she just smiles. Or tries to, she’s pretty sure it came out as a cringe. 

 

If the woman is bothered by her awkward facial expressions, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she just walks over to where Cass is sitting and flops down next to her. ‘Okay, sunshine, here’s the scoop. You’re stuck with me, and I’m stuck with you. I also happen to be a wanted criminal, so we gotta skedaddle, capisce?”

 

Cass nods, and the woman looks at her curiously. “Okay so I originally chalked you not talking to being shy, but that’s obviously not the case, is it?”

 

Cass just raises an eyebrow, and the woman tries again. “Can you understand me?”

 

Cass nods, and she takes it as an invitation to keep asking her questions. “Can you sign?”

 

_ Yes.  _ Cass sighs at her, and the woman grins, her eyes lighting up.

 

“Perfect, we can communicate, then.”

 

Cass eyes her suspiciously but decides that since they’re stuck together, communicating was inevitable.

 

The woman stands up and stretches, looking down at Cass. “You gonna tell me your name, or am I gonna have to keep calling you ‘sunshine’?”

 

_ Sunshine is fine.  _ She signs. She’s not about to tell her her name, especially since the woman was a criminal. If she was, chances are she knows Cain, and she could deliver her right to his doorstep.

 

The woman huffs, not even bothering to try to cover her pout. “I guess it  _ is  _ a little early to be on a first name basis, you can call me Cheshire.”

 

Cassandra gets a faded memory from a movie that she saw a part of when she was younger and she struggles to pull it up to the front of her brain. April in Wonderworld? That wasn’t right, she’s sure of it. She huffs. That was going to bother her all day.

 

Cheshire mistakes her huff for something else, so she explains, saving Cass a day of wondering where the hell she had heard it from. “Yeah, yeah, like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, original I know.” She waves her hand flippantly and begins to walk away from Cass. About five feet away, she pauses and looks back at Cass. “Can I at least know your age?”

 

Cass decides that question is harmless enough, so she tells her.  _ Sixteen. _

 

Cheshire gapes at her. “ _ Sixteen?  _ You’re a baby!” She puts her hand to her face. “Oh my god, I have to care for a minor. I’m not ready to be a mother yet.”

 

Cass looks her up and down, and Cheshire doesn’t look much older than her.  _ How old are you? _

 

“Eighteen.”

 

Cass raises an eye at her, and Cheshire doesn’t need Cass to spell out what she’s thinking for her to know what she was trying to convey. “Hey! You’re not the one that’s gonna get thrown in jail for lugging around a kid with her.”

 

_ I seriously doubt that’s the main reason they’d put you in jail, but okay. _

 

Cheshire’s expression falls flat and she rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, smart ass. Just you wait and see.”

 

The atmosphere suddenly drops, and all the animals stop making noise. Cheshire draws out her sai and Cass her daggers, tensing.

 

Cass hears heavy footsteps coming from her left, and when she looks up at Cheshire, she knows she’s seen them too.

 

_ You go left and I go right. _ She signs to her.

 

_ You got it, kiddo.  _ Cheshire signs back as well as she could with her sai in her hand, surprising Cass. She had assumed that Cheshire could only understand ASL, not speak it.

 

Circling each other to get to their respective positions, waiting to strike whatever came out of the dark underbrush ahead.

 

They don’t have to wait long, but what they almost attack is an elderly lady carrying a bundle of firewood.

 

The woman cries out and drops her kindle, the same time Cass bounces back and Cheshire makes a strangled noise that sounds like she had originally screamed but then attempted to bite it back.

 

Both of them immediately pick up the woman’s wood and offer to carry it home for her, and though the woman is visibly shaken, she still gives them an earful about using weapons in an irresponsible way in Russian.

 

Thankfully, both Cassandra and Cheshire understood Russian so they would be able to get by during their stay in Russia, but unfortunately, that also meant they had to listen to what the babushka had to say.

 

As they reach her hut, a small secluded cabin away from the rest of the village, she grabs them both by their ears and brings them down to her height.

 

“Now listen here,” she tells them in heavily accented English, “You must go for me and retrieve my stolen knife.”

 

Cheshire immediately protests. “Listen, lady, we have places to go and we really don’t have time to go on a wild goose chase looking for a  _ knife.” _

 

The woman frowns, looking down at the earth and Cass can see her lips moving but can’t hear anything come out of them. She edges back. Something was wrong. Cheshire notices her discomfort and also begins to back away, but by this time the woman was already looking back at them, her eyes glowing blue.

 

“You will retrieve my knife, or suffer the price.” The incantation is simple, but Cass can immediately feel it take hold of her, and one look at Cheshire’s distressed face tells her that she was experiencing the same thing.

 

The woman’s eyes fade back to their original grey and she smiles up at them. “Retrieve and deliver my knife to me before twenty-four hours, or the spell will kill you.” She begins to go inside when Cheshire calls out to her, making her slow her pace.

 

“Can we at least see a picture of your knife so we know what we’re looking for?”

 

The woman shakes her head and shrugs. “Do not have one.”

 

“Can you tell us what it looks like?”

 

The woman pauses in front of her door and looks out at both of them. “You know it when you see it.”

 

“No, I  _ won’t,  _ because there are  _ millions  _ of knives in Russia. How will we know which is yours? Your spell is unfair.”

 

The woman sends a cold smile at Cass. “She knows it.” and goes inside, slamming the door behind her.

 

And she’s right. Cass does know which knife it is, and she’ll do just about anything to avoid touching it. But she can’t let Cheshire die just because of a knife that once belonged to Cain, so when Cheshire looks at her questioningly, she sighs, squares her shoulders, and motions for Cheshire to follow. 

 

-

 

_ Two Hours Left On The Clock _

 

“Okay, I know I've done a lot of bad things in my life, but hiding in this cramped vent for three hours seems like an extreme punishment.” Complains Cheshire as she drops soundlessly to the floor of the mansion they were currently in.

 

Cass bites her lip to keep from laughing as she sees Cheshire's extremely distressed facial expression.

 

She didn't like being in tight spaces, her mind whispers, telling her to catalog that weakness for later. She rolls her eyes and shoves it away. It was physically impossible for her to get away from Cheshire anyways, at the moment, so there was no point for them to turn on each other.

 

She doesn't think they will, she's pretty good at reading people, and she's almost certain that Cheshire doesn't want to harm her. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry.

 

They had rummaged through each house in the four surrounding villages as soundlessly as possible, and of course the knife had been in the last house they broke into.

 

And of course, the owners were night owls who decided they needed to stay up into the ungodly hours of the night before finally deciding to go to sleep, so she and Cheshire had to stay cooped up in the vents for three hours before they were free to take the knife.

 

Cass didn't mind it so much, but Cheshire had half the mind to go in there and just take the knife in front of them, killing the owners as she went on.

 

Fortunately, Cass could be very persuasive, so she just stuck to simmering angrily for three hours.

 

But now, they're both free and they're both ready to grab the knife and go.

 

They only had two hours before the spell took effect, and Cass was not looking forward to dying by having her insides eaten out.

 

Creeping towards the back of the house, she spots a glass cabinet where the knife proudly sat. She slowly approaches it, eyes glued to it.

 

She'd recognize that knife anywhere. With its ivory hilt, and a curved blade that had the words “Destroy Weakness Through Strength” carved onto the side.

 

Cain had used it as punishment for her weaknesses multiple times growing up.

 

Shaking her head, she brings herself back to the world around her. Grabbing the hilt, she slips out and finds Cheshire, who was currently going through the family's safe.

 

Cass pokes her side, and Cheshire holds up a finger, rifling through the safe before pulling out a bond from 1917, grinning.

 

It was worth a fortune, but Cheshire puts it back. 

 

_ It's not like I can actually go cash it in or anything.  _ She explains, but her face has the heaviest expression on her face that Cass has seen yet. She bites her lip to keep from smiling and gestures at the vent where they had come out of.

 

Cheshire makes a show out of rolling her eyes as far back as possible before locking up the safe and nimbly climbing up into the vent. Cass follows after her, quietly replacing the cover of the vent. They only had an hour left, and the old woman's village was forty minutes away on foot.

 

They exit the house and sprint towards the village. Cass briefly remembers the “Don't Run With Sharp Objects” rule, but she's pretty sure it doesn't apply to her, or Cheshire, at this point of their lives. They've been running with sharp objects since they were old enough to walk.

 

The wind is blowing in her eyes as she tears through the woods, and thin branches are smacking at her face. She isn't a fan of this, but she's also not a fan of getting killed, so she keeps running.

 

Her soles pounding against the ground and her breathing are the only two sounds she can hear, apart from Cheshire's occasional “I'm gonna kill someone” and “fuck that was a branch”. She looks up at the moon, trying to figure out how much time they have left.

 

Twenty minutes.

 

They both increase their speeds and get to the village with ten minutes to spare. They might have even broken a new record. Probably not, since superpowers were a thing, but it's a nice thought.

 

The woman is waiting for them in front of her door, squatting down, tending to her plants.

 

She looks up at them and Cass can't help but wonder why she was up at this time gardening but decides that she's too tired to judge.

 

Her mouth breaks into a large smile as she gently holds the knife in her hands.

 

“All is forgiven, all is restored.” She chants, eyes glowing once more, and Cass can feel the magic leave her body and her mood heightens.

 

When she looks at Cheshire, her mood drops once more.

 

Her bracelet was spazzing out again, and as soon as the clock hits 4:00 A.M. both Cheshire and herself vanish into thin air once more, leaving the woman staring blankly at the two wisps of smoke that stood in their place.

 

“Americans.” She sniffs, before turning to go inside and taking out her phone. She had someone to call.

 

-

 

The first thing Cass notices is how hot it is. 

 

The second thing she notices is that Cheshire looks like she’s gonna burst a blood vessel, or just go ahead and chop off her arm to remove the bracelet that had been permanently attached to her wrist.

 

Cass really hopes she doesn’t try it; she doesn’t feel like having to carry her to a hospital and have to explain what she was doing with an internationally wanted criminal. 

 

And that if she was spotted, it could tip off Cain, she reminds herself.

 

She sheds off her yellow snow jacket and rolls it up as tightly as she can before shoving it inside her backpack, and does the same thing with her hoodie. It was too hot for so many layers, and she couldn’t risk passing out from heat exposure. She also makes sure her hat with the yellow bat is still in her bag. She lets out a small sigh of relief when she sees it.

 

Cheshire seems to have the same idea because she’s rolling up her sleeves and twisting her hair up into a bun. She leaves on her gloves on though, and Cass can’t help but wonder why. 

 

From her position nestled against a type of palm tree, she watches Cheshire pace back and forth, waiting for to calm down enough to look over at Cass so Cass could sign at her. It would probably take a while, so Cass gets comfortable. Leaning against the tree, she stretches her legs out in front of her and begins counting the number of flowers she can spot in the surrounding area.

 

She gets to eighty-nine before Cheshire finally comes over and plops down next to her, leaning her head back against the trunk of the tree. She stays quiet for a minute before breaking the silence. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

 

Cass blinks in confusion. Cain had never asked her for permission before, and she decides she likes people asking for permission.

 

_ Yes.  _ She signs, and Cheshire scoots closer to Cass so that their shoulders are touching and then takes Cass’ head and pushes it on her shoulder.

 

“You need to sleep, you look exhausted.” She tells Cass as her own head begins to lean on Cass’ own. “I’ll keep watch, don’t worry. I won’t let anyone touch you.”

 

While Cass would normally argue, her eyes are aching and her eyelids are already starting to droop. Adjusting her position so she’s more comfortable, she closes her eyes and lets herself let her guard down. She doesn’t know why she trusts Cheshire, she’s only known her for about two days, but she does. Maybe it’s because they’re stuck together. Cheshire couldn’t betray her without having to give herself up as well. Or maybe it was because of her age and background. Cheshire was a little older than her, but Cass knows to be able to do what Cheshire can do, she had to train long and hard for years, just like her. Or maybe Cass just wants a friend. With that last thought, she falls asleep.

  
  


She wakes up with Cheshire shaking her, whispering “We need to go, sunshine.” in an urgent tone of voice.

 

Eyes snapping open, she sees Cheshire kneeling over her, arms wrapped around her right shoulder. Her hair had begun to fall out of her bun and one of her sleeves had drooped down, and she had panic painted across her face, eyes wild.

 

She immediately gets up without protest, shifting into a crouch, scanning the surrounding area for threats. When her eyes meet a pair of catlike green ones, she automatically knows why Cheshire was so nervous.

 

The jaguar was tensing, waiting to pounce, and Cass gets ready to run. Looking up at Cheshire, she shifts her eyes to the right, before looking back pointedly at Cheshire, who looks unhappy with her plan but nods anyway.

 

“You  _ do  _ know that a jaguar’s top speed is fifty miles per hour, right?” She whispers faintly, but Cass can still hear the disbelief in her tone.

 

Cass shrugs.  _ Then we’ll have to be faster.  _

 

Cheshire’s mouth arcs downwards, and she sends Cass the most unimpressed look that she had seen in a while. “A human’s top speed is twenty-eight miles per hour, genius.”

 

Cass tenses her legs, ready to spring up and take off, and grins up at Cheshire.  _ You scared I’ll outrun you? _

 

Cheshire’s eyes narrow, and Cass can hear her mutter “this is a trap, this is a trap” over and over again, but she knows that she already won this argument. 

 

With one last look at one another, they take off down the thick foliage that grew around them. Behind her, Cass can hear the jaguar pounce and take off after them and she leaps up into one of the trees, jumping from tree to tree. Cheshire follows in suit, shrieking “You  _ do _ know that jaguars can climb, right?” behind her.

Cass’ only response is laughter, and she keeps going, increasing her speed. Below her on the forest floor, she can see the jaguar matching her speed with ease, looking up every so often to make sure that it could still see its prey.

 

Cheshire is definitely not lacking in the endurance department and is utilizing her history in acrobatics to her advantage. Cass is positive she’s just showing off.

 

She rolls her eyes. Leave it to Cheshire to perform an entire acrobatic routine while she’s running for her life. 

 

Just as she and Cheshire are about to drop down in front of it as they planned, a man rushes out of the brush, waving something that makes the jaguar snarl and edges back, teeth bared and ears pushed back. The man walks closer to it, and with a snap of its jaw, the jaguar turns tail and runs off, disappearing in the foliage. 

 

Cheshire looks down from where they were frozen and looks at Cass, who was still looking back at the man.

 

“I’m guessing we need to thank him for his help.” she snips sarcastically as Cass drops down, the invisible tie between them dragging Cheshire down with her.

 

Cass looks pointedly at Cheshire then at the man and back. Cheshire signs and uncrosses her arms.

 

“She wants me to tell you thank you, but between you and I, we could’ve handled it just fine.” She tells him smoothly in Portuguese.

 

The man smiles brightly at the sound of his native language and shakes his head. “No problem at all.”

 

“Perfect.” Cheshire fiddles with the handle of one of her sai. “Then we can go on our merry way.” the unspoken ‘before we’re forced to do something else we don’t want to do’ hangs in the air, and Cass is inclined to agree. They begin to turn away when another man steps out of the brush. “It is our custom to repay those who aided us.” The man informs them, eyeing the younger man who had graciously denied any need for a thank you critically.

 

Before either of them can react, the man’s eyes are glowing green and he mutters something unintelligible, and thick green wisps wrap around the two of them, before fading from view.

 

“You will retrieve the _ Jaborandi  _ in twenty-four hours or-”

 

“Or we’ll die, yeah, we know the drill.” Cheshire waves him off before grabbing Cass’ wrist and dragging her away from the men.

“And this is why,” She looks back at Cass, “We  _ never  _ approach men, no matter how chiseled their abs are. Cuz there’s always an older dude with a gut waiting to ruin your life behind him. Or worse. The hot guy ends up being the one with the gut.” She shudders from some memory that floated up to the surface.

 

Cass frowns. The first man had not presented any danger. He had not planned to do anything. She knew that, but she decides that Cheshire is right. Do not trust what was not visible to the eye.

 

_ Why didn’t you ask what the plant looked like? _ She asks Cheshire after tapping her wrist to ensure that Cheshire looks back at her.

 

Cheshire shrugs. “I know my poisons.” And keeps marching in the direction of a dark thicket. Cass doesn’t argue. She knows a great deal about poisons too, but most of her knowledge of the stuff was synthetic, not natural. 

  
  


They walk for about four hours before Cheshire finally stops and slowly inches around a pool of water to the other side, where a thicket of light green plants with small dark red flowers grew. Carefully picking two or three stalks, she reaches out for the tshirt that she had instructed Cass to have ready and wraps the plant inside, making sure that none of the plant was poking out. She then takes two vines she had pulled off a tree on the way there and ties the cloth so it doesn’t unravel.

 

Standing back up, she tucks the cloth in one of the pouches on her belt and backs out of the thicket.

 

They needed to hurry, the sun was setting and soon there would be no light left in the day, and being out in the jungle at night wasn’t the most ideal situation. 

 

They quicken their pace, trying to beat the turn of the earth, but unfortunately, gravity won this round, and the last of the natural light was extinguished. Cass pulls her night vision goggles out of her utility belt and puts them on her face. When she looks back at Cheshire, her heart nearly jumps out of her chest.

 

Cheshire was wearing a full face mask that had a large smile etched out, as well as ears and red stripes. Cass has no idea where Cheshire was carrying it, and to be quite honest, she doesn’t want to know. 

 

_ At least your name makes sense now.  _ She signs at Cheshire, who she can tell grins even though she can’t see her face. 

 

Cheshire’s mask gave her night vision, which was good. It would have been very bad if one of them was at a disadvantage, especially when they were stuck together.

 

They near the area where they had met the men, and they hear the rustling of leaves. Immediately they turn back to back, scanning the area for what was approaching.

 

The jaguar from before leaps at Cass’ face, appearing from the shadows, and before she can react, Cheshire has one of her gloves off and scratches at the jaguar’s nose. Her nails break the jaguar’s skin, and within seconds, the jaguar drops, and so does Cass’ mouth.

 

She whirls around, demanding an explanation from Cheshire who was casually slipping her glove back on.

 

Cheshire looks back at Cass and shrugs. “What? I dip my fingernails in poison.” At Cass’ incredulous eyebrow raise, she throws her hands up. “I said I know my poisons! You should have figured out I have at least some sort of poisoned weapon on me!”

 

_ But on your fingernails? _

 

“They’re acrylic.” She defends, placing her hands on her hips. “ _ And  _ I wear gloves! It’s not like I’m going on about my day, accidentally poisoning people! I only poison people I  _ want  _ to poison. I’m  _ responsible  _ like that.”

 

_ Is your lipstick poisoned too?  _ Asks Cass, referring to the red lipstick that Cheshire always seemed to have on, despite Cass never seeing her reapply it.

 

Cheshire pauses. “No. But that might be a good idea…” She muses.

 

Cass can’t see her face, which was still covered by her mask, but she knows she’s trying not to laugh. Cheshire rarely took anything seriously, but still managed to get the work she needed to done. Cass would be lying if she said she wasn’t a bit jealous of that quality.

 

“Ah! You made it!” The older man waddles out of the brush, hands outstretched for the plant.

 

_ But I  _ _ am _ _ considering poisoning him.  _ Cheshire signs at her before her hand moves down to the pouch were the plant was stashed.

 

Cass bites her lip to keep from smiling.  _ Not until he reverses the spell though. _

 

Cheshire’s posture visibly brightens. “Aw sunshine, you’re learning.” She puts her hand to her heart before digging out the cloth-covered plant and tossing it to the man.

 

“Now reverse the spell, Jumbo.” She demands, and Cass has to resist the urge to put her face in her hands. Why Cheshire was provoking the man that had the power over their lives at the current moment, she had no idea, but she does know that Cheshire finds it amusing, so there’s no stopping her.

 

The man takes a moment to unfold the shirt to ensure that they had the correct plant before he smiles and waves his hand, and the green wisps from before exited their bodies and made their way back to the old man.

 

“Thank you,” he tells them, just as the world starts to fizzle right before both Cassandra and Cheshire vanish from view once more.

 

Frowning, the man reaches out his hand and touches the smoke that stood in their place.

 

“Strange.” He mutters before pulling out an old, battered flip phone out of his pocket, and dialing a pre-saved number.

 

-

 

Cass wakes up on a soft surface to the sound of a tea kettle whistling, and she jolts up.

 

There was only one place that was so specifically obsessed with tea.  _ Great Britain.  _ Groaning, she smashes her face against the surprisingly rough pillow. All the work she put into getting out of the U.K. and she was back where they started.

 

She hears something shift below her and she looks down at the floor next to the couch where Cheshire was laying face down on a pillow, head tilted enough so Cass can see her slobbering onto the pillow.

 

She pokes Cheshire’s cheek, but Cheshire just slaps her hand away and rolls over. Cass tries again, except this time she pulls a strand of Cheshire’s thick hair. Protesting loudly, Cheshire grabs her hair and pulls it to the other side. 

 

Sighing, Cass sits up and swings her legs over the edge of the sofa and reaches over with her foot, pushing Cheshire over so she rolls off of her pillow. 

 

Cheshire’s eyes automatically snap open and her arm reaches for sai before she notices Cass and glares at her before flopping down on the pillow. Cass pushes at her again and she lifts her neck from the pillow, looking exasperatedly at Cass.

 

“Can I help you?”

 

_ Where are we? _

 

Cheshire takes a moment, listening, before looking back at Cass. “Based on the irritatingly loud teapot, probably somewhere in England. Why? Got somewhere to be?”

 

Before they can respond, someone raps their knuckles on the half-closed door before walking through it, carrying a tray with shot glasses lined next to each other with a teapot placed in the middle.

 

Frowning, Cass looks up at the person, a man in his late twenties with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a ratty trench coat and a loosened tie, and raises an eyebrow.

 

“G’moring lovelies!” The man tells them in a chipper voice, setting down the tray and pouring the tea into three of the shot glasses. “You two have had quite the trip if I’m not mistaken. Barely latched onto ya when I did.”

 

At Cheshire’s raised eyebrow, he straightens himself out and clears his throat. “Ah. Forgot to introduce myself. How rude. Name’s John Constantine, sorcerer extraordinaire.” He waves his hand lightly in a circular motion, but his face has a mocking expression to it when he says that. “I felt you two sorry lugs getting transported to Felix Faust himself, so i reached out and teleported you here instead. You’re welcome, by the way.” He rattles off as if he had memorized what he was going to say beforehand, not sparing a glance at them as he adjusts his sleeves.

 

When they don’t respond, he motions to the tea. “Well go on, I normally don’t extend my neck out for anyone, but if I do, I go all out, so drink up.”

 

Cass takes one of the shot glasses and sniffs it before taking a sip of it. It doesn’t taste bad, she decides.

 

Cheshire doesn’t look at the tea, instead, she looks down at her soiled clothing, at Cass’, and then back at Constantine. “You have a washing machine sunshine and I can borrow?”

 

Constantine points at an empty space before muttering “Teg em a gnihsaw enihcam”. Immediately, a washing machine shimmers into existence. 

 

Cheshire sends him a sideways look. “You didn’t have one?”

 

Constantine shrugs. “Didn’t need one before now. There’s some clothes you can borrow from the drawer over there.” And walks out.

 

Cheshire opens the wardrobe and immediately grins. “Jackpot.”

  
  
  
  


They are changed and were waiting for their clothes to finish washing. Cass had just chosen a pair of too-big nike socks, a pair of workout shorts that she’s almost positive don’t belong to Constantine, and a yellow sweater. 

 

Cheshire, on the other hand, hand picked out a dark green crop top, white shorts, and a pair of bright, fluffy rainbow socks. One of the socks was pulled up to its full length, going halfway up her calf, and the other sock pooled around her ankle. 

 

Cass took one look at her color combination and has to look away for a moment.

 

Cheshire grins at her and lifts her foot up in front of Cass’ face. “You like my socks?”

 

Cass, scrunching up her nose and leaning as far away as possible, nods yes and pushes her foot away from her.

 

Cheshire laughs and calls for Constantine. “Yo! Get me a teabag when you’re coming up, will you?”

  
  
  
  
  


“I don’t know if bobbing the tea bag actually helps, but it sure is nice to feel a part of something.” Cheshire cheerfully tells Cass and Constantine as she continues bobbing her herbal tea bag in the magically summoned teacup that she had insisted had to be created for the sole purpose of drinking tea.

 

Constantine raises an eyebrow. “Now I don’t consider myself the classiest of Brits, but even  _ I _ don’t drink my tea like that.”

 

“No,” Agrees Cheshire, “You’re not even drinking tea. You keep changing it to liquor when you think we’re not looking.”

 

Cass’ tea gets blown out of her nose from laughing, and she immediately slaps her hands over her face. Cheshire glares at her. Her obnoxiously bright socks had been resting on Cass’ lap, and now they were covered in tea [and snot]. 

 

“If that was an elaborate ploy to get me to take off these fluffy socks, you’re sorely mistaken,  _ honey _ .” She warns Cass, before finally putting down her tea bag and scooping out a spoonful of honey, dropping it into her tea. “Get it?” She points at the honey and Cass swats at her.

 

Cheshire looks at Constantine and points at his flask. “Can I hit that?”

“You’re a kid.” Constantine takes a long swig from the flask.

 

“The drinking age in the U.K. is eighteen. I’m eighteen.”

 

“Get your own liquor, squirt.”

 

“Rude.”

 

Cass tugs at Cheshire’s arm.  _ Ask him if I can have some. _

 

Cheshire balks at her. “What? No! You’re a baby. No alcohol for you.” She bats at Cass’ hands. “No underage drinking, man. I taught you better than this.” She shakes her head in mock despair. “Kids these days.”

 

Their clothing finishes washing and drying, and Cass looks back at them, before looking back at Constantine.

 

His body language was taut and apprehensive, and she frowns. 

 

_ Ask him what he wants.  _ She tells Cheshire, who relays the question.

 

He leans back, most of the tension leaving his body. “I want a lot of things, love. Gonna have to be more specific than that.” He quickly realizes what came out of his mouth and rushes to atone. “Not sexual things, from you, anyways. You two are practically infants.

 

“What I  _ need  _ is a vial of something that is currently being displayed at some ridiculous upper class social gathering. So that’s where I’m heading to, if you two have nothing to do and are bored, you are welcome to tag along.” He tells them, before muttering something and transforming his clothing into an expensive three piece suit. 

 

Cheshire looks and Cass, who shrugs. They had nothing else to do, and they’d probably get transported somewhere else in a few hours, so they were stuck until that happened again.

 

“We’ll go.”

 

“Brilliant. You’ll need these.” he waves his hands and two dresses appear from thin air. “These are illusions, just put them on top of your original clothing, and they’ll make you look like you’re wearing dresses to all non magical blokes.” And walks out of the door, shutting it behind him.

 

They put on their original clothing, but Cheshire keeps the socks, much to Cass’ dismay. 

 

“Don’t hate the rainbow, sunshine,” Cheshire told her as she pulled her dress over her head, it was deep green color with gold embroidery. 

Cass snorts as she puts own her own, a black and yellow dress.  _ I don’t hate the rainbow, I just think it would look better somewhere else. _

 

Cheshire gasps audibly and chucks the pillow she had slept on at Cass, who catches it with ease. She frowns.  _ You got the softer pillow. _

 

“Yeah, but I also slept on the floor while you got the  _ couch.” _

 

-

 

The party was loud and overcrowded, and Cass wants leave. There were too many people here and not enough exists. She feels for her utility belt, safely hidden away by the illusion, and exhales a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She wonders how much longer it would take Constantine to get that vial.

 

Trailing behind her was Cheshire, who was grilling Constantine with questions. The only question and answer she cared to hear, however, was about the vial.

 

“So why don’t you have this vial?”

 

“ _ Because  _ I’m too kind of a person and gave it away to a man who needed it. Didn’t even charge him.” Constantine shakes his head.

 

“When did you give it to him?”

 

“About 2006.”

 

“So it’s been ten years? And you still haven’t replaced it?”

 

“I haven’t needed another preservation spell until now.” Snaps the man. “And unfortunately I put off everything until the last moment. It’s not one of my redeeming qualities.”

 

“You have those?”

 

“Cheshire, dear, shut up or I’ll turn your hair pink.”

 

“Fancy. Who was the last preservation for? Was it the Cour-”

 

“It was none of your business.” Interrupts Constantine, before excusing himself to extract the vial.   

 

_ What’s the Cour? _

 

“Don’t worry about it, sunshine. That’s definitely something you don’t want to get involved in.” Cheshire brushes off the subject lightly, but Cass can hear the severity in her tone.

 

She’s so focused on trying to read Cheshire’s body language for a clue as to what she was talking about that for a moment she stops focusing on the other people around her, and she feels someone grab at her lower back, and she whirls around to see an older looking man with a sleazy smile stretching across his face.

 

Before she can react, Cheshire is shoving the man into a wall, screaming at him.

  
  
  


“You think that’s funny?” She asks in a low tone, and Cass can see Cheshire start pulling the glove off of the hand that isn’t currently pinning the man’s neck to the wall and she grabs her arm.

 

_ No kill. _ She asks, and Cheshire looks like she wants to argue, but she relents, instead calling to the people who had gathered around “He harassed a minor!” and the man is immediately escorted out of the building with two of the officers who had been in the room.

 

As soon as the man is gone, Cheshire immediately pulls Cass into a tight hug. “Are you okay, sunshine?” Cass nods into her chest, wrapping her own arms around her friend.

 

Constantine comes back, and he looks between the two of them. “Did I miss something?”

 

Cheshire grabs Constantine and Cass and drags them out of the building. “I almost killed a man.”   

 

Constantine nods. “Huh. Festive.” 

 

-

 

They’re sitting down on the couch, waiting for Constantine to tell them what was going on with Cheshire’s teleporter, since he had mentioned before that he sensed magic when they teleported, and they don’t have to wait long.

 

When Constantine comes back into the room. He doesn’t look happy.

 

“Can you tell me how many times you’ve teleported, and how much time do you have until you get teleported again?” He asks urgently, eyebrows pressed together.

 

“Three times. Right, sunshine?” Cheshire looks over at Cass, and she nods.

 

_ And we only have fifteen minutes until we teleport again. _

 

Cheshire relays what Cass said to Constantine, who’s frown grows even deeper. “Based on my calculations,” He spins his hand and a chart appears out of thin air, “If you teleport more than four times, the device will destruct, and it will kill the both of you in the process. Also, before you stop paying attention, I was able to isolate and identify who was behind this; a man by the name of David Cain.” He sends Cassandra a pointed look but continues. “I also happen to know his location, so while I can’t do much for you in such a short amount of time, I can alter the bracelet so it will take you to roughly the same location as him, so you can hopefully stop him before this occurs.”

 

Cass takes a moment to process the information, before immediately feeling sick to her stomach. She should have known better than to think he didn’t know where she was and what she was doing. He had been pulling the strings from the beginning; this was probably another one of his training exercises. And now her friend might die as a result.

 

Voice wobbling, she asks “Where is Cain?”

 

Both Cheshire and Constantine snap their attention to her, confused.

 

“You can talk?” Asks Cheshire, sounding slightly offended that Cass hadn’t tried to talk to her beforehand.

 

“Not important. Where is Cain?” She looks directly at Constantine, silently demanding an answer.

 

“In the United States,” he zooms in on the chart he had summoned earlier. “Gotham City to be exact.”

 

The clock chimes and they all look up at it.

 

Four minutes left.

 

Without any delay, he begins chanting the spell needed to send them to Gotham city. White light encircles them, and the last thing Cass hears before everything goes black is Constantine saying “If you find a man dressed as a bat, trust him. He has a lot of issues, at least in my humble opinion, but he’s useful. Find the Batm-”.

  
  


-

  
  


They wake up to the sound of honking cars and screaming people.

Shaking herself awake, Cass takes a minute to observe the world around her. Thick smog hung in the air, wrapping itself around tall skyscrapers. All the buildings seemed old, and she’s willing to bet that there are gargoyles on some of the buildings. The people here did not appear friendly. They walked bent forwards, not making eye contact with anyone, but eyeing everyone suspiciously. It was sad. 

 

Cheshire, who had been silently standing next to her lightly punches her shoulder to get her attention. “So you can  _ talk  _ and you didn’t tell me? Do you not like me?” she asks her in a joking voice, but Cass can see the beginning of hurt beginning to swirl in her eyes, and she shakes her head.

 

_ I cannot speak well. I know enough to get by, but it is very difficult for me. I wasn’t raised with language, so I struggle with other people find simple. Cain-my father- trained me to be the perfect assassin, so he raised me to only understand body language. As I got older I tried to teach myself, but it was very difficult. _ Cass signs, trying to explain the situation as well as she can. She doesn’t want Cheshire to be angry with her.

 

“I’m Cass.” She holds out her hand, in a silent plea for forgiveness.

 

Cheshire stares at her outstretched hand and for a moment Cass is scared she’ll reject her. Instead, Cheshire grabs her hand and jerks her forwards, pulling her in a tight hug before pulling back and looking at Cass with a soft expression. 

 

“Hi, Cass,” she tells her with a slight smile, “I’m Jade.”

 

Cass smiles brightly at Jade, before bringing her attention back to their mission.

 

_ We have to find Cain and fix the teleportation bracelet.  _ She tells Jade, tugging on the dark green sleeve of her now-clean suit.

 

“And I think I know just the person,” Jade tells her, mouth twisting upwards.

 

Cass frowns.  _ The Batman? _

 

Jade laughs loudly, throwing her head back and it echos on the walls of the alleyway they were standing in, and it’s clear the residents of this city rarely heard laugher by the way they look suspiciously at them as they walk past, but neither of the two pays their audience any mind. “No, not Batman. Someone a little more friendly. C’mon, try to keep up.” Before launching herself upwards towards the nearest stairs and scampering up the ladder to the roof.

 

Cass quickly follows, nimbly keeping pace with Jade, who had the upper hand because she had clearly been here before and knew the city better. Cass wasn’t fazed, she was a quick learner and soon she’d be moving around Gotham as if she had lived there all her life.

They spend a good thirty minutes running on rooftops, and Cass finds herself wondering if Jade even knew where she was going. Maybe her friend had moved, she thinks, it’s not like Jade had had a lot of free time to visit her friends while she was with the League of Assassins.

 

Just as she’s about to ask Jade if they’re actually going somewhere, or if they’re just running to nowhere, Jade dives down the side of a building, and Cass has no choice but to follow, their invisible link dragging her along. 

 

They land as quietly as possible in front of what looks like an old and abandoned warehouse. Jade walks up confidently to it and touches the door. Automatically, dozens of weapons are pointed at them but Jade just sighs and types in a combination in the holographic keypad that had appeared when she had touched the door. The weapons immediately disappear and she flings the sliding door open, revealing a redheaded boy who was tinkering with a motorbike.

 

“Arrow Boy!” Jade calls out in a singsong voice and the boy, who had been so engrossed with his work that he hadn’t heard them come in, looks up and yelps. Jade laughs and sits down on the seat of the motorcycle, telling him that he needed to pay more attention to his surroundings.

 

He looks irritated and argues that he knew someone had come in, he just didn’t think it would be  _ her  _ of all people (Cass thinks there’s more going on between the two of them than meets the eye and she suddenly feels like the very awkward third wheel). When Jade tells him that he’s bluffing, he points towards the ceiling where a very sharp arrow was pointed at both Cass and Jade, looking very smug.

 

Rolling her eyes, she looks back at Cass and motions for her to come closer so she shoulders her backpack and shuffles over, feeling more and more the outsider by the second.

 

“Roy! This is my friend Sunshine.” She tells the boy, and Cass is relieved she didn’t tell Roy her real name. She trusts Jade, not him.

 

Roy raises a thick eyebrow at her name but lets it go with an easy grin, extending his hand towards Cass. “Hey.” He greets, and Cass smiles back.

 

Thankfully, he doesn’t pay much attention to her, instead turing back to Jade.

 

“So what can I do for ya? I know you’re not here to look at my gorgeous face.” He tells her cheerily, but Cass can see well-hidden resentment embedded in his body language, and she screws up her nose.

 

They were here to fix their combustion problem, not fix an old relationship problem. That could be done  _ after  _ the threat of them dying was dealt with.

 

Thankfully, Jade was as smart as she was talented so she doesn’t waste time with pleasantries. “See this?” She shoves her bracelet in Roy’s face, who looks down at it, unimpressed. “It’s broken and keeps teleporting Sunshine and I to random places every few hours. If it teleports again, it’ll explode and we’ll go ‘boom’ with it. You’re the best person with technology I know. Can you help or no?”

 

Roy takes one look at the bracelet and scoffs. “What do you take me for?” he asks “Of course I can fix this. C’mon.” He gets up, brushes off his grease-covered hands on his worn jeans and takes off in the direction of a cluttered desk, motioning for them to follow.

 

-

 

Pushing away from the desk, Roy finishes tinkering with Jade’s bracelet, and it falls off of her wrist, catching fire as soon as it’s detached from her.

 

Unfazed, Roy puts out the fire and turns back to Jade with a cocky grin. “Fixed you’re teleporting problem. Couldn’t fix your attachment problem, but that’s magic so you should probably go see Zatanna or someone with less of a moral compass, knowing you. What are you doing for the rest of the day?”

 

“Stopping Sunshine’s insane father from killing her, and me, in the process.”

 

Roy’s smile falls and he turns to Cass and pats her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Dads suck, man. My dad wouldn’t let me join the Justice League.” He offers lamely.

 

Cass has to hide her face to keep from laughing and Jade swats at his shoulder while biting her lip to keep from laughing.

 

“Hey,” he protests, “I did my best. I could’ve just said ‘that’s rough’ or something else like that!”

 

“‘ _ My dad wouldn’t let me join the Justice League?’ _ ” Jade asks, stifling a laugh. 

 

“It’s better than nothing.”

 

_ I think ‘nothing’ would’ve been better in this case.  _ Cass tells Jade, who bursts out laughing, much to Roy’s confusion since he hadn’t noticed Cass signing.

 

Rolling his eyes and muttering something about ‘I tried to be nice and look where it got me’, he begins to clean up his working area while Cass and Jade watch him.

 

Cass is pretty sure that what Roy considers ‘cleaning’ is far different from what the standard understanding of ‘clean’ is, but she doesn’t comment on it. Some people work better with eight layers of tools laying on their table, she tells herself. 

Tossing something into the trash can, Roy announces he’s done cleaning, but Cass isn’t sure what exactly he cleaned. 

 

Jade obviously agrees with her, because she looks blankly at Roy’s table and asks “Where did you clean?” Which results in Roy tossing a crumpled piece of paper at her, which she dodges easily enough, but Cass knows from just that that his aim is almost unparalleled. 

 

Grabbing his bow, he looks up at where Jade is standing. “So, where’s this insane dad? I’m always a slut for sticking it to old people.”

 

“I’m sure you are,” Jade tells him.

 

Roy gasps loudly, giving her the most offended look he could muster. “I’ll have you know, I am a very classy lady who does not give herself easily, thank you very much.”

 

“Gave yourself up to me easy enough.”

 

“But not quickly.” He counters, before spinning in his chair to look at Cass. “She was after me for  _ weeks. _ ” He tells her gesturing with his bow, and Jade laughs loudly.

 

“It worked, didn’t it?”

 

He doesn’t respond, instead, he grabs his quiver, slinging it across his back and motioning for them to start heading out.

 

-

 

They had been searching for hours, and soon the sun would be up. Crawling through a tight air vent, she hears a buzzing in her ear. Roy had given them comms to communicate with each other and based on what she was hearing, Roy had spotted Cain in another part of the building.

 

She’s hesitant to go; Cain never let himself be seen unless he had a reason to, so the element of surprise was gone. Still, she steels her nerves and keeps going. 

 

She had no choice.

 

Finally arriving at where Roy was, she drops silently to the ground next to him and Jade follows seconds later.

 

Before either of them can acknowledge each other, Cain acknowledges them for them.

 

“I was wondering when you’d show up.” He tells them, but he’s staring directly at Cassandra. “Quite frankly, I’m disappointed that you took so long. I taught you better than that. I had expected you to be here an hour ago.” He pauses. “The wannabe Green Arrow kid is new, though.” He admits, shifting his body to face them directly.

 

Cassandra feels thick panic slowly sliding up her throat and settling in her mouth and she fights to swallow it back down. She couldn’t afford to panic now. Beside her, Roy notches an arrow and Jade draws out her two katanas. Gripping her own two daggers, she doesn’t wait for Cain to attack, instead, she attacks first.

 

-

-

 

Roy was knocked out cold and Jade was thrown across the room and was struggling to get to her feet, which left Cassandra standing alone in front of Cain. It didn’t faze her much, she had been fighting him since she had been old enough to walk.

 

Smiling sharply, Cain draws out a dagger, and Cass recoils. It had been the one that she and Jade had retrieved for the sorceress back in Russia. There was something dripping off of the blade, and Cass was willing to bet it was the poison from the plant they had retrieved for the man in Brazil.

 

She’d have to be extra careful and make sure it didn’t make contact with her skin, she didn’t have an antidote anywhere near here. 

 

Tensing her legs, she grips the dagger that she had left in her hand, the other one had gotten embedded in the opposite facing wall, much to her dismay. 

 

Cain lunges at her and she manages to duck out of the way and land a kick to his stomach. Unfortunately, after the kick, he grabbed her leg and swung her backward into the wall, and she lands face first on the ground. Putting his entire weight on her, he pushes her face into the hard floor, and she can feel splinters beginning to sink into her cheek as he grinds her face into the floor, knife pressed against her throat.

 

Careful not to thrash so the knife doesn’t break her skin, she tries to reach her hand back and grab one of his pressure points, but he sees what she’s trying to do and he slams her arm down and pins it down.

 

“Sorry, it had to end like this, kid. But you know what happens to naughty little girls.” He hisses into her ear, adjusting his grip on the dagger. “They get pun-”

 

A shadow sweeps across the room and Cain looks up alarmed, the same time Jade makes a strangled noise and Roy, who had just woken up, muttered: “He’s gonna tell my dad, who’s gonna  _ kill  _ me.”

 

Cass feels the pressure leave her body, and when she looks up, her father was glaring at a man dresses in all black to was standing across from him. Instead of attacking the man like she thought he would, he looks down at Cass, hisses “This isn’t over, baby girl.” And runs off. 

 

As Cass struggles to get off, a bomb detonates and the last thing she hears is screaming before the world fades to black. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading ! 
> 
> comment if you'd like :)
> 
> also i know constantine wasnt That in character but i can't write mean characters for my life so :/
> 
> If you're wondering about everyone's ages in this fic as of 2016 (cuz the series take place in 2019 but this is sorta like a prequel lmao) they are:  
> cass: 16  
> jade: 18  
> roy: 18  
> bruce: 30  
> constantine: uhhh idk man he has like slowed aging in the comics so you pick the age


End file.
